FAQ: Difference between revisions

== What operating systems does Cumulus run on?  ==

Cumulus 1 - All versions of Windows from XP to Windows 10 inclusive (and the server versions). It works on 32 bit and 64 bit editions. It may also work on Windows 2000, but this is not supported. You will probably not be able to get it to work on Windows 2000 with a Fine Offset station.

The installation process for Cumulus 1 displays '''readme.txt''', that has many tips. See also [[Setup]]. Below are three key points.

# Install Cumulus in its own directory directly under a drive root.

# Connect your weather station before you start Cumulus

{{Version badge 1}}Reminder, this FAQ answer is ONLY for Cumulus 1

== Will you support a new weather station type?  ==

Cumulus 1 is no longer being developed, its source code is no longer available, so it cannot be edited to support anything new.

== How do I get Cumulus to update to the internet? ==

*'''Internet Update''' - this feature is to place [[Website_setup|web pages]] onto a personal web server.  You can use the web templates provided with Cumulus, or your own (customised) pages. This is optional, and there are a lot of settings to get right, but it is a standard feature that has always been part of Cumulus.

*'''APRS/CWOP ''' - this feature is to update your observations onto the ''cwop.aprs.net'' server, the update will happen automatically while Cumulus is running if you configure it in the APRS/CWOP frame within Cumulus internet settings.

== How do I request a new feature for Cumulus 1 ==

Consequently, there is no possibility of any new features for Cumulus 1.

== Why haven't you added the feature I asked for a long time ago? ==

Steve Loft developed and supported Cumulus in his spare time while having a full time job. He invited donations, but didn't make a living from Cumulus. He added facilities when he could. There was a long list of  enhancement requests but many were not implemented and the list was lost during a move between hosts. Thus any feature requested in that list, which has not been implemented since, will not be implemented.

== Do I need to leave Cumulus running all the time ==

Cumulus is designed on the basis that it works best if it is operating continuously, so it can interrogate the weather station at maximum frequency and has least risk of missing extreme measurements. All the derived calculations (maximum and minimum in a day, apparent temperature, average temperature,and many more will be more accurately calculated if based on the most possible measurements at consistent intervals.

*It can be useful to take copies of the Cumulus 'backup' sub-folder on key dates (e.g. at change of month or year), or if you think you might have some rogue figures.  The '.ini' files in the backup sub-folder contain past extreme values that you might want to look up.

*You should also back up, at least once, your cumulus.ini file in the main Cumulus folder.  This contains all the key settings and you need a record of those!

{{Version badge 1}}This article in the wiki gives more details above moving Cumulus: [[Moving cumulus]]

== What are the formats of the Cumulus data files?  ==

Format information is also in the Cumulus 1 help file, in the section “Data log file format”

The '''Configuration''' menu, ''Station'' setting screen (near bottom) has option to enter there the ''rainfall total'' for the bit of the year (starting month can be selected here too) until when you first start using Cumulus.  See the Cumulus '''Help''' for this screen for further details.

A converter for Weather Display log files is available from [[Software#Weather_Display_Converter|software page]]

== I was away on the last day of last month/year - How do I see the final lowest and highest figures for last month/year? ==

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'''View''' menu, ''This month'' or ''This year'' screens show some figures for any month or year selected by you, but do not show all the figures shown on a standard web page or as shown on the ''Highs and Lows'' screen for the current month/year.

*Look in the ''backup\daily'' subfolder within your Cumulus installation.  

*These daily backups will be created if Cumulus was left running during the period of interest, or stopped before that period and since restarted.  

Open as a text file [[month.ini]] in the folder whose name is bearing the timestamp after your final rollover, for Cumulus builds 1041 to 1088 the final lowest and highest for each observation in the month will be listed.

In a similar manner if you miss the last day of the year, for Cumulus builds 1041 to 1088 see the final 'this year' figures for last year by opening [[year.ini]] from the appropriate backup.

* The latest Davis 3-second average is treated by Cumulus as 'Latest' (available via <#wlatest>, matching direction is '<#currentwdir>' and '<#bearing>')

* The Davis 10-minute average is the Cumulus 'Average' (available via <#wspeed>,  matching direction reported as '<#wdir>' and '<#avgbearing>').

If the Cumulus figure seems lower than the Davis figure see [[#My_Davis_station_shows_a_higher_maximum_wind_speed_than_Cumulus]].

Fine Offset sensors measure wind over 48-second intervals, divided into 24 2-second intervals. At the end of each 48-second period,  the outdoor unit (anemometer) transmits two values, the "Gust" is calculated from the number of revolutions of the anemometer in last two seconds and the "Average" from the number of revolutions adding all two second counts in the 48 seconds. The console keeps '''overwriting''' the newly received 'Gust' and 'Wind' values to the same area of console memory every 48 seconds, until the station logging interval time is reached, then it moves on to the next memory location, leaving the last values it wrote in the previous console memory location.  

=== Summary with default selections ===

# '<#wgust>' contains "Calculated Wind Gust (highest value for any 2 seconds in last 10 minutes) Speed" reports highest console gust value in last 10 minutes (this is capturing WMO gust definition over a longer 10 minute reporting interval)

# '<#wlatest>' contains "Latest Peak (the value for last 2 seconds in 48 seconds prior to storing) Wind Speed" taken from console gust value (this is capturing the latest WMO Gust)

=== In detail with all the configurations ===

* The highest of the Fine Offset 'Gust' values over the previous 10 (number fixed and not configured to match any other interval set) minutes becomes what Cumulus reports as the 'Gust' speed ('<#wgust>').  Cumulus does not report a matching direction for this as a web tag, although it will be somewhere in array '<#wdirdata>'.

* The value labelled 'Latest'('<#wlatest>', matching direction is '<#currentwdir>' and '<#bearing>') by Cumulus is Fine Offset console 'Gust' value. (Cumulus also adds each new latest value to the array <#wspddata> and moves the index of the array <#nextwindindex> onto the next position in the circular array.

** If 'Calculate 10-min wind average' and 'Use speed for avg calculation' are both selected; the average of the Fine Offset 'Wind' values read over the previous N (configurable, defaults to 10) minutes is reported.

La Crosse and some Oregon Scientific weather stations only output a single wind speed.  To allow Cumulus to calculate 'gust' and 'wind speed' with different values, select the '''Station''' dialogue from the ''Configuration'' menu and set ''Calculate 10 min wind average'' in the 'Settings' frame, so in [[cumulus.ini]] this will produce the parameter 'Wind10MinAverage=1 when cumulus is next stopped.

* The station's 'Wind' value will then display as Cumulus 'Latest'.

* The highest of the station's 'Wind' value in a 10 minute period will then display as Cumulus 'Gust'.  Note that the WMO definition of a wind gust is the mean wind speed over a 2 to 3 second sample period (not the maximum instantaneous wind speed).

{{Version badge 1}}Reminder, this FAQ answer is ONLY for Cumulus 1

== How does Cumulus handle Daylight Saving Time?  ==

Cumulus provides the option for you to use rollover at 9am winter time that is preserved throughout the year so all days are 24 hours long even when clock changes, simply click "Use 10am in summer" on the Station settings.

*See Fine Offset forum discussions for further information.

[[Temperature_(and_humidity)_measurement#Cumulus_Calculated_Parameters|see Cumulus_Calculated_Parameters]]

For stations which supply a rain rate, Cumulus uses that. For stations which don't supply a rain rate (e.g. Fine Offset and La Crosse), Cumulus simply takes the rain total from the last five minutes and calculates a rate based on that; e.g. a single tip of 0.3mm in 5 minutes is a rate of 3.6mm/hr. When data from the station's logger is used, a similar calculation is performed, but the interval used is the logger interval rather than five minutes.

* The rainfall totals (for this month, year, and season), are initialised when Cumulus is (re-)started by adding up the corresponding daily totals in [[dayfile.txt]] and storing those sums in memory.

**Don't forget that Cumulus uses binary arithmetic to base 2, that does not correctly represent what in base 10 are decimal places, so you may see slight errors for those using inches and expecting correctness to two decimal places (read up this on internet if you don't understand binary arithmetic).

** The rainfall totals shown on the ''This period'', ''This month'', and ''This year'' screens within the '''View''' menu in Cumulus 1 are generated by adding up the daily rainfall totals found in [[dayfile.txt]] for the selected period.  Using default settings via '''View''' menu in Cumulus 1, ''This month'' screen for this month excluding today, ''This year'' screen for this calendar year (this does always start on 1 January, unless you only started using Cumulus after that) excluding today. ''Note any rainfall for the current (meteorological) day is excluded as the latest dayfile.txt row is for yesterday.'' Totals can be shown for any past period, by selecting the required dates, the figures are recalculated when you press the ''Update display'' button and will include all days available in dayfile.txt for the chosen period. ''Important note: The view menu 'This year' screen always calculates the total for a selected calendar year starting in January.''

**Today's rain is added to the figures (as described above) derived from dayfile.txt for what the front screen in Cumulus 1, labels '''This month''', and ''This year'' (this last figure is the seasonal total, you can choose for it to start on 1 January or any other month). Thus these figures are updated each time Cumulus receives a rain reading from the station (they all include today-so-far), and these figures will not be displayed if Cumulus is unable to read rain information from your station.

** The today's total so far at each reading time is also added to the 'recent tag' array allowing total values for the day-so-far at one minute intervals for up to a week ago to be added as web tags to a web template.

**If you have set a 'year to date' value and Cumulus is being re-started when the year specified beside that figure matches the current calendar year, your year-to-date amount is also added into this year's total. This should normally only be relevant in your first rain season of operating Cumulus, but could be used if in any season you needed to add an extra amount because for some reason you had a gap in your recording period.  ''Do be aware that if you select a rain season starting in a month other than January, the year to date figure will stop being added on 1 January because the year specified next to the figure to add on will then be the previous calendar year!''

**There is no corresponding setting for amending the total for the first 'this month' of Cumulus operation.  The only way round this is to manually change the rainfall in dayfile.txt for the first day of operation to include rainfall on all previous days of month, but that could potentially cause you to set the maximum daily rainfall extreme record wrongly.

*Note that you need to stop and then restart Cumulus to update these initial values that are stored in memory and get any corrections you made to rogue values in the daily summary log (or year-to-date) reflected on the main Cumulus screen and in web tags.

== How do I reset all my data to start again from scratch?  ==

Cumulus does not directly support languages other than English. It was never intended for use in other languages, and it is not possible to add support for this now. However, the text used for:

*Forecasting

*Beaufort Scale

*Trend descriptions

*Graph titles

*Extra sensor channels

On the downloads page you can find third-party alternative web pages, these typically include some language translation modules, but beware that these may not be maintained to work with latest versions of Cumulus.

== How does Cumulus deal with extra sensors? ==

== What is this "Solar Max" value which Cumulus is displaying? ==

You don't need to, and it's much safer if you don't; clearing the memory could lead to a loss of data. The memory indicator on the console has no effect on the logging of data; the console will automatically start re-using the oldest memory locations. As long as you are running Cumulus (at least occasionally), Cumulus will have downloaded the data it needs from the console, so the console is free to overwrite the oldest data when it needs to.

{{Version badge 1}}Reminder, this FAQ answer is ONLY for Cumulus 1

this utility, select Convert USB to Virtual Serial in your WeatherLink program group on the Start menu of your computer (Start>AllPrograms>WeatherLink>Convert USB to Virtual Serial) and run the utility to convert your data logger. Please contact Davis Technical Support (“Contacting Davis Technical Support” on page 26) for more information."

{{Version badge 1}}Reminder, this FAQ answer is ONLY for Cumulus 1

The fact that it works with several different types of weather station means that much of it is a compromise; it doesn't use certain features of the weather station which it could use if it were dedicated to that type of weather station. For example, it typically does not use any high/low data that the station might store internally. Instead, it maintains its own high/low data from individual readings. There are a number of reasons for this; the fact that Cumulus supports an 0900-0900 day, and the weather station does not, and the fact that typically Cumulus maintains far more high/low values than the station does, and these need to be self-consistent.  

3 options:

Don't attempt to run Cumulus 1 and MX at same time, they cannot share a single weather station. However you can with a single weather station, stop Cumulus 1 and then run MX if they use different data folders, then later stop MX and run Cumulus 1.

== I installed a new version and my web page templates got over-written  ==

== I can’t find my data files!  ==

== I can't save my NOAA reports! ==

== My sunrise and sunset times are wrong  ==

If you are not familiar with the degrees/minutes/seconds standard format and have your co-ordinates in some other format, there are pages on the web which will convert for you. One such is here: http://transition.fcc.gov/mb/audio/bickel/DDDMMSS-decimal.html

**You can try the same cure, but may not be able to recover the lost information in this case.

== Why do I have some unexpected zero figures? ==

== Cumulus read some invalid figures from my station ==

If you have:

*just started using Cumulus,  

... check you have the correct station type selected (see the Cumulus ''Help'' for the settings screen).

*Is the information ''correct on the station console'' (i.e. not a fault with a sensor), but incorrectly displayed on Cumulus screen (i.e. transfer problem)?  

Check all your settings on Cumulus, or see a [[#Cumulus_can.27t_read_a_data_update_from_my_station|previous question]].

Over successive versions of Cumulus more and more code has been incorporated to deal with the way some stations are prone to reporting rogue readings.

*Ensure you are using the latest Cumulus build, if you are using an old version you will not have any enhancements made since the earlier build that might improve the way Cumulus reads from your station type.

'''Possible Cure:'''

The purpose of the backup files is to allow Cumulus to be 'rewound' to a particular point in time.  It simulates the situation where someone had closed Cumulus down at that point, and is only now starting it up again, and needs data to be downloaded from the station's logger to catch up to the present time. Obviously this cure will not work if your station type does not have a logger (one is needed for Cumulus to read old readings again).

*If you have only installed Cumulus a few days ago, or have just re-started Cumulus after it was stopped and encounter multiple ''rogue readings in the catch-up from the station logger''; '''one possibility''' is to stop Cumulus and find the [[#On_restarting_Cumulus.2C_it_did_not_successfully_read_all_data_from_when_it_last_ran|backup files]] that it took when you started it up (or just after the previous roll-over time), copy those files into the data folder, overwriting the ones that are there, then when you start it up again it will rewind back to the time in that back-up, and could sort itself out.

== How to restore a corrupted log file ==

Full information about all the log files is elsewhere  [[:Category:Log_Files]], so you can study the notes linked from there, but here is a very quick summary.

* Remember 'alltimelog.txt' logs each change made to 'alltime.ini' so you don't need to correct the former, but it can help you know how to regress the latter.

* "speciallog.txt" (if used) holds internal temperature and internal humidity, it does not get copied to backup folder, so you need to back it up yourself.

* 'yesterday.ini' will get overwritten at end of day, so it is rare to edit that.

* "dayfile.txt" has a new line appended to it at the end of each day, if you go back to the backup copy and you lose the latest line, then most of the information can be extracted from the 'today.ini' in the same backup folder, but you need to understand the process and content differences as explained in the Wiki for the two files.

* 'log.xml' is another file that Cumulus does not copy to the backup folder, so you should back it up periodically.  It is only found in Cumulus 1 and is edited using the 'Weather Diary' screen in the 'View' menu.  Although it can be edited by a 'XML' editor, I advise against it, as the way that the field 'RowState' is calculated is complex, and if you corrupt the file, Cumulus 1 will crash.

* "mmmyy.txt" (naming varies depending on computer settings) is the detailed log mentioned above

Because many positive values are realistic, Cumulus generally will accept those odd increases as a result of accidental knocking of a tipping bucket gauge, due to wind effects on the gauge, or even due to the station electronics generating a rogue reading. The sub-answers below explain how to correct such errors.

=== (Invented rain) Error in today's total ===

=== (Invented rain) Error in date/time of 'Last Tip' ===

=== (Invented rain) Error in number of consecutive days with or without rain ===

# Remember that 'ConsecutiveDryDays' and 'ConsecutiveWetDays' do not include today, they reflect the daily rainfall amounts stored in the [[dayfile.txt|daily summary log]].

=== (Invented rain) Error in total or high rainfall rate for any day before today ===

=== (Invented rain) Error in total, or extremes, for this month and/or this year ===

*Longest dry period

*Longest wet period

=== (Invented rain and) Rain Counter ===

Note that other rain figures, such as 'rain last hour', 'rain last 24 hours' and 'rain since midnight' depend on a sensible progression of the rain counter described in previous sub-answer, so it's not easy to correct this; it is easier to wait until the erroneous figure is far enough in the past so as not to affect the calculation of these 3 other values. Note that if you're using a midnight start of day then you don't need the 'rain since midnight' figure anyway, as it is normally the same as 'rain today', and that figure is much more easily corrected.

===  (Invented rain) Error prevention by Spike removal ===

===  (Invented rain) More information ===

== My monthly and/or annual rainfall totals are wrong  ==

Cumulus calculates these when it is restarted, holds the values within memory, and increments them as required while it is running. This FAQ in the previous section [[#Where_does_Cumulus_get_its_this_month_and_this_year_rainfall_totals_from.3F]] has a concise description of how Cumulus calculates these figures.

* The rainfall total reported by the ''<#ryear>'' web tag is for the rainfall season to date, it is calculated from taking today's rain and then adding the sum of the totals in dayfile.txt starting with the first (meteorological) day of the month specified in the 'rainfall season' frame on the ''station settings'' screen within the '''Configuration''' menu, until the end of dayfile.txt is reached. So check you have specified the right starting month there before deciding the rainfall total shown is wrong. This is the same figure as is shown on the main screen of Cumulus 1 for "This year" in the rainfall frame.

See immediately preceding FAQ [[#My_station_invented_some_rain_that_didn.27t_really_occur.2C_and_I_want_to_set_it_to_zero_.28or_some_other_figure.29 |correcting rainfall]]  for how to correct errors in total for particular days and how to correct the high extremes for the various periods.

In all cases,  wait until Cumulus has written the next log entry (i.e. wait the number of minutes that you have set as the Cumulus logging interval), then restart Cumulus to get the monthly and annual totals recalculated from correct daily totals.  

== The ‘gust’ line has disappeared from my graph  ==

If you do this, you will probably need to edit your log files in the '''data''' folder as you may have duplicate entries and/or entries out of order. Your rain totals will almost certainly also be wrong - the total for "today" in particular. See the [[FAQ#My_station_invented_some_rain_that_didn.27t_really_occur.2C_and_I_want_to_set_it_to_zero_.28or_some_other_figure.29 |FAQ]] entry about correcting rainfall data. If you have only just started using Cumulus, you could delete all of the files in the data folder, and just create a simple today.ini as below. Then when you start Cumulus, processing will start again with just the data from the station's logger.

<pre>

[General]

CurrentDay=10

</pre>

Change the dates and time to match the point from which you want Cumulus to start downloading data. If the station has already sent the data, this may not work, unfortunately.

Probably some of your inserts used the wrong format (blank rows, fields with real numbers where integers expected, alternatively missing or duplicated fields). See [[:Category:Log_Files]]. Note that Cumulus will only flag errors in the log files that it reads (e.g. those relating to the period for which it displays trends graphs).  Check all the log files you have amended.

== Cumulus doesn’t show the same pressure as my Fine Offset console  ==

# that you are comparing the Cumulus display with the ‘relative’ pressure on your console,

# that only one copy of Cumulus is accessing the weather station (and no other software),

# and that you do not have a setting for pressure on the Cumulus calibration screen.

The Fine Offset stations only store absolute/station pressure readings in their weather memory locations updated with each transmission and read by Cumulus. Within Cumulus, the software applies the adjustment to sea level before any further processing. It does ''not'' use the altitude setting in the cumulus station configuration screen.

Make sure that you have set your console's relative pressure correctly:

  EWpressureoffset=x.y

== My pressure suddenly dropped! Or suddenly increased!  ==

== I get an error when I try to view my all-time records. Also, they don’t appear on my web site  ==

== I get an error when I close Cumulus  ==

== My forecast says "Not available"  ==

== When I start Cumulus, the graphs restart again each time and don't show the earlier data  ==

This problem can also occur if you change your system format settings (date format, decimal and list separators etc). Again, check the diags file for a message about a number not being a valid floating point value.

The most likely explanation is that you have only recently started running Cumulus (in the last day or two). It adds new values to this graph at the end of each day; it wouldn't make sense to add a value part of the way through the day, and you need a few points to be plotted before the graph starts to take shape. You need to wait until you have been running Cumulus for a few days.

== The longest dry/wet spell for this month/year includes days from last month/year ==

This is an attempt to make sure that bad data is not logged. If your weather station is not fully functional, you will not be able to use Cumulus fully.  

(You need to do this while Cumulus is stopped). Note that you are likely to get bad data logged if you do this.

# start Cumulus up again.

   

If your all-time and/or monthly all-time records have been affected, see the next [[#How_do_I_correct_my_all-time_.28or_monthly_all-time.29_records.3F|FAQ entry]].

== How do I correct my all-time (or monthly all-time) records? ==

== It's January 1st and my 'rain since midnight' and/or 'last 24 hours rain' and/or Evapotranspiration are wrong/negative ==

If you look in the status bar at the bottom of the Cumulus window, there may a message "Error: no response"; this would confirm that the station has locked up and needs resetting.

FOReadAvoidPeriod=N

{{Version badge 1}}See this forum post - https://cumulus.hosiene.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=14148

= Website =

== How do I replace the 'bird' image on my website? ==

* The simplest way is to upload a new picture to the images folder of your website; the file should be called picture.jpg.  Please ensure the image is not too large and bear in mind it will appear on the bottom left of the page; the site data may cover some of the image.  As a guide, the default image is 600 x 450 pixels.

* Secondly, you may upload an image using your own file name.  Edit the ''weatherstyle.css'' file and look for the line <tt>background-image: url(images/picture.jpg);</tt> around line 9 and adjust as necessary.  Upload the edited css file to your website.

     <td></td>

</pre>

*To show solar instead, replace 'intemp.png' with 'solar.png', replace 'intempsm.png' with 'solarsm.png', and change the wording of the value associated with the alt property.

*To make Cumulus upload the solar graph, select it on the 'files' tab of the internet settings.

**Deselect the option where indicated by red arrow if your template includes something like <code><meta content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" http-equiv="Content-Type" /></code>

**For customised pages, (without standard Cumulus template names), select/un-select the UTF-8 encoding in the appropriate column on the '''Configuration'''  menu, ''Internet'' dialog, '''Files''' tab screen where you list the local and remote names.

== My web pages have obsolete web tag values in them  ==

You'll need to list the (source) file including paths on the files tab of the internet settings, and specify a destination path and file name for the remote file in each case. Don't tick the ''FTP?'' box for standard cumulus pages (the exception is for a local web server and any non-standard web page that attempts to read using a script a local file such as dayfile.txt as this does need FTP to generate the server-based web page). For the standard images, you can supply a folder name (specify on the same screen), and they will all get copied there. See [[Customised_templates#What_to_select_on_the_.27Files.27_tab_of_the_Internet_Settings_screen_within_the_.27Configuration.27_menu|here]] for greater detail.

== Error Codes generated by FTP or Winsock ==

Cumulus 1 doesn't support Secure FTP. You can configure Cumulus to invoke an external program like WinSCP, as described here: [[SFTP | SFTP article]]

== Directory related problems in FTP ==

* Any ''files you specify'' for uploading at standard update frequency are uploaded between standard pages (if 'Include Standard Files' selected) and (applies only to Cumulus 1) standard images (if 'Include Standard Images' selected).  You should specify the path (including any web site directory) in 'remote filenames', as there is no call to 'change directory'. In this case, if that path is invalid, the upload fails.

* If you have enabled ''Realtime'', the realtime.txt file is uploaded without doing a change directory, (by appending "/realtime.txt" to the directory on the ''Internet settings'' screen in '''Sites/Options'''). In this case, if the web site directory in your settings is invalid, the upload of the real time file fails.

* On the ''NOAA Setup'' screen the optional '''Directory''' parameter required is the relative path; from your FTP root, to where the NOAA report pages are to be stored. (It is totally independent of the directory on the ''Internet settings'' screen in '''Sites/Options''').  Click the '''Help''' button for full explanation. Like realtime.txt, the upload destination is determined by appending the file-name for the report to any NOAA directory, and will fail if that directory is specified wrongly.